Wednesday 30 January 2008

Frozen shoulder

Paid my first visit to a physiotherapist yesterday and had a secondary frozen shoulder diagnosed and manipulated. Intriguing experience. I had great expectations of ultrasound, but couldn't feel a thing!

Since my great flurry of activity on selling earlier in the month, I have received a few negative replies. Caroline Sheldon, A P Watt, Rupert Heath and Gregory & Co have turned down Warden's Bride, and Little Black Dress felt the Rimrock Caper wasn't for them. M&B don't want Herondale's Chance, either.

I think my skin's growing thicker, because I sighed and sent them out again into the big cold world. Somebody, somewhere is going to like them. It'll just take time. I didn't have much faith in agents responding favourably, I have to say. They seem to be flooded out with people (like me!) who think they can write and expect to be published. I blame computers. I've said this before and no doubt I'll say it again, but I do think a PC turns out such an impressive looking piece of work that the author thinks the content is as good as the appearance. Often, it isn't.

I'm "reading the line," as publishers so often tell aspiring authors, so now I'm writing as a reader rather than an aspiring writer. Still with me? Good. The book is one of this year's (or maybe 2007) M&B historicals, by an American author. I find it curious that this author has done so much research into the Victorian period, specified on the first page as 1889, and then drops into language that uses gotten and off of in the same sentence, has her characters eat biscuits and gravy for breakfast. Not only that, M&B have published it as a Regency.

I cannot imagine eating biscuits (sweet, sugary) and gravy (rich and meaty) for breakfast. And 1889 is well into the Victorian era, forty years away from the Regency. Where, oh where was the
editor when this was going through the processes? The story is good, the writing vibrant but these little things, so easily corrected, stand out like giant rocks in a river and jerk me out of the story. I hereby send up a plea to all editors - please, ensure the books are written in whichever language is correct to the time and place of the story. American English and British English are two very distinct languages, I fear!

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